"Sorry, buddy, but I just bought this suit, and it's nothing without the gun."So about two-thirds of us want assault weapons banned. But at the same time, Gallup did a poll asking it this way:"Are you for or against a law which would make it illegal to manufacture, sell, or possess semiautomatic guns known as assault rifles?"The result:Ban them: 44 percent; don't ban: 51 percentA freaking 20-point swing, just by adding a bunch of words that really drive home what "ban" means. And you can do that with any issue -- if you poll Americans asking, "Should we cut government spending?" an overwhelming 76 percent say cut, cut, cut, people literally demand cuts "across the board." But if you ask the question another way, by actually listing the programs instead of just calling it "government," then the numbers reverse completely -- support for cutting drops into the teens or 20s.

Penn and Teller did an episode about this. Here is a clip from the show showing how polls are bullshiat Link

I_Am_Weasel:I thought "Yeah, like naturalnews.com" when I saw the title.

Had an FB friend post a naturalnews article the other day and I clicked without knowing what the site was. One of the first things I saw was "according to infowars Alex Jones..." and instantly knew it was teh derp.

Penn and Teller did an episode about this. Here is a clip from the show showing how polls are bullshiat Link

They had one here this week where a poll was headlined as showing 'gay marriage doesn't have majority support'

It was a hugely pushed question:

(In 2004, Parliament legislated to allow same sex couples to register a civil union, amending over 150 pieces of legislation to give legal rights and recognition to same-sex couples. Do you think Parliament should change the definition of marriage to allow same-sex couples to marry, or do you think civil unions are sufficient for same sex couples?)

and the result was still 47% for 43% against, but by ignoring that and taking the 47% at face they could lie and claim it lost. The poll was commissioned by 'family first' naturally.

A completely unbiased poll on the same topic (question 'In New Zealand same-sex couples can enter into a Civil Union, but they are not able to get married. Do you think same-sex couples should be able to get married?') showed 63% in favour

"Sorry, buddy, but I just bought this suit, and it's nothing without the gun."So about two-thirds of us want assault weapons banned. But at the same time, Gallup did a poll asking it this way:"Are you for or against a law which would make it illegal to manufacture, sell, or possess semiautomatic guns known as assault rifles?"The result:Ban them: 44 percent; don't ban: 51 percentA freaking 20-point swing, just by adding a bunch of words that really drive home what "ban" means. And you can do that with any issue -- if you poll Americans asking, "Should we cut government spending?" an overwhelming 76 percent say cut, cut, cut, people literally demand cuts "across the board." But if you ask the question another way, by actually listing the programs instead of just calling it "government," then the numbers reverse completely -- support for cutting drops into the teens or 20s.

Penn and Teller did an episode about this. Here is a clip from the show showing how polls are bullshiat Link

Yes, you get a 20 percent swing if you flat out lie about what the proposal entails and also imply that all semiautomatic weapons would be banned, though to be fair, they didn't explicitly lie on that one, just implicitly. Adding a bunch of words to drive home something biases the result. In that case, it was pretty clearly intentional, given the lies. The Assault Weapons Ban proposals on the table would NOT prohibit possession- just production and sales of new weapons.

Yes, polls can be bullshiat. But they can be, and often are, useful and accurate. That shiatty thing from Gallup was not that- the Kos one was simply and neutrally worded, and if they followed standard practices on their sample, it should be very accurate.

Penn and Teller did an episode about this. Here is a clip from the show showing how polls are bullshiat Link

They had one here this week where a poll was headlined as showing 'gay marriage doesn't have majority support'

It was a hugely pushed question:

(In 2004, Parliament legislated to allow same sex couples to register a civil union, amending over 150 pieces of legislation to give legal rights and recognition to same-sex couples. Do you think Parliament should change the definition of marriage to allow same-sex couples to marry, or do you think civil unions are sufficient for same sex couples?)

and the result was still 47% for 43% against, but by ignoring that and taking the 47% at face they could lie and claim it lost. The poll was commissioned by 'family first' naturally.

A completely unbiased poll on the same topic (question 'In New Zealand same-sex couples can enter into a Civil Union, but they are not able to get married. Do you think same-sex couples should be able to get married?') showed 63% in favour

techbuzz:I've been skipping all Daily Fail links on Fark for some time now. I wish mods/Drew would cut those ties and stop greenlighting Fail links.Relevant talk/video: Why the Daily Fail Is Irredeemable Shiat

I remember #4 about the 23 year old having sex with the dog in the front yard from last week. Looking at the meth addled mug shot, the story seemed pretty ligit to me. I'm sure things similar, or worse, have happened. Meth is a hell of a drug.

No...I'm not.... Make it plain on the main page... pay me my bucks, or I serve you ads... be honest and up front. I think most folk would pay $5 a month to escape that, some maybe not... but, we need to know the details.

KrispyKritter:bonus bullshiat: any direct quote from any politician, the lying corksucker scumbags.

People ask me every four years, did you watch the debate? And I'm like no, because after about ten seconds I want to cock punch all of them. Not just the politicians, everyone involved. This is why I don't really blame the politicians. Because people put up with it. They sit quietly and listen attentively instead of doing the civilized thing and throw chairs at the guys when they say something stupid, weaselly or both.

C. A large percentage of people are just picking answers at random.... Remember that massive BP oil platform disaster a few years ago, the one that dumped a bunch of oil into the Gulf of Mexico? A poll at the time found that 21 percent of people said the disaster made them like offshore drilling more.

I don't think that represents people picking at random, so much as "I'm a hard-core supporter of offshore drilling and I want this poll's outcome to be as positive towards drilling as possible, even in the light of recent events"

And: ....pollsters also found that they could make up a completely fictional government program and get 25 percent of people to claim they have heard of it and express an opinion about it.

The one thing I can say about that is: They called it the Panetta-Burns plan. Leon Panetta was fairly famous as the director of CIA and Secretary of Defense. Thus just by having his name on it, it probably earned an air of legitimacy, and possibly even a sense that it was endorsed by the Obama administration; or that since Panetta was often making statements about the effects of the sequester on the department of defense, that people might assume he lead crafted an alternative to ameliorate those effeds on the DOD.

I wouldn't be surprised if that name choice alone was responsible for the people who expressed an opinion about it.

Reading the last link about the "disadvantages" of LFTRs made me sad. But then, I have to wonder how many of these just engineering problems for which an efficient solution just hasn't yet been found, or just an "operating cost" that you'd find in any kind of advanced production chain (including standard nuclear reactors or even any power-generating plant).

cptjeff:Yes, you get a 20 percent swing if you flat out lie about what the proposal entails and also imply that all semiautomatic weapons would be banned, though to be fair, they didn't explicitly lie on that one, just implicitly. Adding a bunch of words to drive home something biases the result. In that case, it was pretty clearly intentional, given the lies. The Assault Weapons Ban proposals on the table would NOT prohibit possession- just production and sales of new weapons.

Yes, polls can be bullshiat. But they can be, and often are, useful and accurate. That shiatty thing from Gallup was not that- the Kos one was simply and neutrally worded, and if they followed standard practices on their sample, it should be very accurate.

Maybe I interpreted the text slightly differently, but I read the Gallup poll as being more explanatory than misleading. That is, that they specify that they are referring to semi-automatic guns that (some) people call "assault rifles" rather than suggesting that the bans would restrict all semi-auto guns. There's a lot of confusion on the issue, and many people think that "assault weapons" are full-auto or burst-fire instead of semi-auto. Specifically mentioning that the poll is referring to certain guns that are semi-auto seems reasonable to me.

The Kos poll was more simply worded, yes, but I wouldn't say that it's necessarily "neutrally worded" -- terms like "assault weapons" aren't really neutral. Had they used the more neutral term "certain semi-automatic rifles" instead of "assault weapons" I suspect the results would have been different. "Certain extremely popular semi-automatic rifles" would likely change the result even more.

You're right about the "possession" bit. The addition of that word makes it difficult to compare the two polls on an apples-to-apples basis.

Maybe I interpreted the text slightly differently, but I read the Gallup poll as being more explanatory than misleading. That is, that they specify that they are referring to semi-automatic guns that (some) people call "assault rifles" rather than suggesting that the bans would restrict all semi-auto guns. There's a lot of confusion on the issue, and many people think that "assault weapons" are full-auto or burst-fire instead of semi-auto. Specifically mentioning that the poll is referring to certain guns that are semi-auto seems reasonable to me.

The intent is clear, and the wording extremely carefully chosen.. the poll makes a point of explaining things in a way that will drive down numbers, while not mentioning anything that might drive up numbers.

It should be meant to be a poll not an educational/persuasive piece, if people are ill-informed then the poll's job is to show the result of that not to fix it.

heypete:cptjeff: Yes, you get a 20 percent swing if you flat out lie about what the proposal entails and also imply that all semiautomatic weapons would be banned, though to be fair, they didn't explicitly lie on that one, just implicitly. Adding a bunch of words to drive home something biases the result. In that case, it was pretty clearly intentional, given the lies. The Assault Weapons Ban proposals on the table would NOT prohibit possession- just production and sales of new weapons.

Yes, polls can be bullshiat. But they can be, and often are, useful and accurate. That shiatty thing from Gallup was not that- the Kos one was simply and neutrally worded, and if they followed standard practices on their sample, it should be very accurate.

Maybe I interpreted the text slightly differently, but I read the Gallup poll as being more explanatory than misleading. That is, that they specify that they are referring to semi-automatic guns that (some) people call "assault rifles" rather than suggesting that the bans would restrict all semi-auto guns. There's a lot of confusion on the issue, and many people think that "assault weapons" are full-auto or burst-fire instead of semi-auto. Specifically mentioning that the poll is referring to certain guns that are semi-auto seems reasonable to me.

The Kos poll was more simply worded, yes, but I wouldn't say that it's necessarily "neutrally worded" -- terms like "assault weapons" aren't really neutral. Had they used the more neutral term "certain semi-automatic rifles" instead of "assault weapons" I suspect the results would have been different. "Certain extremely popular semi-automatic rifles" would likely change the result even more.

You're right about the "possession" bit. The addition of that word makes it difficult to compare the two polls on an apples-to-apples basis.

/your mileage may vary

The reason why polls are so easy to game is also the reason why direct democracy and referendums are a bad idea (except for a few rare examples where the issue is of high importance to the majority of people and enough will actually make an effort to understand the consequences and effects of the vote).

/of course a representative democracy that is purely partisan and most reps don't even bother to read the laws they are voting for/against isn't any better, but that isn't true of all representative democracies

oldtaku:Sadly, the Daily Mail usually has the best pics for any story, even the ones the other news outlets are covering. Poopship, for example.

This.

It would be nice if the other news sites had better layouts.

USATODAY's new layout is a bullshiat overlay that is hard to navigate, Huffpo loads like 30 videos that all play at once, NBC and CNN's site is just a wall of half ass organized content you have to squint and scan through, its like a shiatty facebook timeline that didn't load the style sheet,

The thing that really gets me about the Daily Mail is not so much the egregious bullshiat. It's not even the stories declaring that everything on the planet causes cancer, apart from the things that miraculously cure cancer.

What gets me though is the head-spinning constant denigration of women. Dress too conservatively and you're frumpy or dowdy or, worse, possibly a Muslim. Show a little skin and you're sexy. Show too much skin and you're a tramp, a whore, and a terrible role model for your children and everybody else's children (because it's all about the children). No cleavage = bad. Little cleavage = good. Lots of cleavage = dangerous. Nipple = end of western civilization as we know it. And then best of all is their fake outrage when they want an excuse to run a picture of a topless celeb or a swimsuit model: "Look at that dreadful hussy! Flaunting herself like that! And here's another shot of her ass so you can see for yourself how offensive it is!". (Related: "Paparazzi are a dreadful scourge, and here's a bunch of pictures we bought from them.")